After SETI, 'Folding@Home' Takes Up the Fight Against COVID-19 (foldingathome.org) 43
Though SETI@Home has shut down, "users with a fondness for distributed computing might take a look at Folding@home, which is trying to figure out the structures of proteins on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus," writes Ars Technica.
The coronavirus uses these proteins to latch on to proteins on the surface of human cells, a key step in its ability to infect them. Understanding the structure of this protein is a key to understanding the virus' vulnerabilities.
While it won't help in the production of a general vaccine, it can be extremely useful in developing therapies. Once we know where this protein interacts with its receptor on human cells, we can start searching for small molecules that could bind in this same location, potentially blocking this interaction. Alternatively, we can potentially generate antibodies that bind to this site on the virus' protein. Either of these options can help people who are already infected, as they can limit the virus' ability to spread to new cells.
Or, as their web site explains it, "The data you help us generate will be quickly and openly disseminated as part of an open science collaboration of multiple laboratories around the world, giving researchers new tools that may unlock new opportunities for developing lifesaving drugs."
While it won't help in the production of a general vaccine, it can be extremely useful in developing therapies. Once we know where this protein interacts with its receptor on human cells, we can start searching for small molecules that could bind in this same location, potentially blocking this interaction. Alternatively, we can potentially generate antibodies that bind to this site on the virus' protein. Either of these options can help people who are already infected, as they can limit the virus' ability to spread to new cells.
Or, as their web site explains it, "The data you help us generate will be quickly and openly disseminated as part of an open science collaboration of multiple laboratories around the world, giving researchers new tools that may unlock new opportunities for developing lifesaving drugs."
Prepared (Score:4, Funny)
Folding@home on one monitor, Doom on the other.
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Aalmost installed it, but just getting a list of the downloads requires third party javascript. Even the "alternate downloads" link requires that.
I'm happy to share a few CPU cycles for a good cause, but I'm not going to pay google to do it. (I'm the product, and I'm not getting anything in return)
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As I recall, IBM was doing a folding initiative that was supposed to scale bigger than Folding@home.
Ah, here it is. I don't know what became of that effort though. [genomeweb.com]
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No-paywall link, first part under "History" [wikipedia.org]
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How much will they pay me to use up my resources for their benefit?
Folding@home is administered by Washington University in Saint Louis, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. [foldingathome.org]
So I'd guess they wouldn't be paying you unless you worked for them.
Re:Prepared (Score:4, Funny)
Folding@home on one monitor, Doom on the other.
What are you using Doom to prepare for? ;-P
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A Dr. Samantha Grimm will do, to start.
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Don't worry, the biggest polluter got shut down by the virus for now.
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Basic medical research has to be done, and contributing, within reason, is fine. Now, spending a fortune in energy to find a bitcoin is likely ethically dubious.
That's a fair comment. The energy-cost of mining bitcoin is greater than that of mining some valuable metals. [theguardian.com]
Of course, creating, managing, and circulating any currency has an environmental impact. But bitcoin is hardly benign.
Re: What about the Earth? (Score:2)
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This is very inefficient comparing it to the optimal solution that we could build with known technology. Easy solution is to tax people more and use that money to build super computers with that money to do this calculation. In other words, giving more money to research. Keep that in mind when voting next time.
On the other hand, we have people keeping pets, driving for fun, playing games and watching cat videos. It would be better to get rid of those first and only after that we should consider about giving
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Folding results? (Score:2)
I briefly remember F@H before I got an apartment in college and had to pay my own electricity.
Have there been any breakthroughs or results from F@H in the ~20 years since then?
Re:Folding results? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Folding results? (Score:4, Interesting)
>"I briefly remember F@H before I got an apartment in college and had to pay my own electricity."
The interesting thing is, way back when I was doing stuff like Seti/F@H, computer power efficiency was so dismal that it didn't matter much if my system was idle or 100%.
Now with my Rizen7 system, there is a HUGE difference between the power consumed when it is idle vs. busy. So there is much, much more "cost" with it being loaded. I just tested, and at load, it doubles my power usage- another 81 watts for just one box! That is 2KWh/day x 12 cents = $7.20/month. (Excludes dealing with wear or heat).
Not saying it isn't worth doing something like this (especially compared to something stupid, like bitcoin mining). Just pointing out that it isn't almost "free" like it used to be.
Only folding your hands required! (Score:4, Funny)
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Yes, almost every breakthrough in Western medicine was made by a Christian, and just about every breakthrough in science in the last 500 years was made by a Christian, some of the most notable being real nuts on the topic - Newton was such a radically conservative that he could have been drawn and quartered had is beliefs (anti-Trinitarian) been known.
But a bunch of weenies on the internet, whose greatest accomplishment is a +3 Funny mod, know much better.
What to select? (Score:1)
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Introducing foldcoins (Score:1, Insightful)
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You may find it hard to believe (well, obviously, you do, assuming that you mean what you type), but the real reason for many is precisely what they say - they want to contribute to a project.
You want something weirder - before SETI@Home (also, before I had a frequent internet connection), I contributed to a project aiming to calculate the 40quadrillionth binary bit of pi without calculating the closer-to-1 bits. Purely for the interest o
Save the planet or save the planet? (Score:1)
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You could also give up believing the fantasy that anything you do is meaningful to the planet in any way. That's what I would suggest. But be discrete about it unless you want to fight with narcissistic enviro-zealots.
Or you could recognize that the entropic fate of our universe is inevitable, but for the moment, the Earth is where we must concentrate our efforts.
Accepting that anything we do to alter our fate is "meaningless" is fatalistic. Do you you seriously just want to give up?
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The "religious environmentalist" crowd, as you would label them, is an oxymoron. Those who recognize the reality of climate change have science, not religion, to back them up. And they most definitely do care about people.
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Everything beyond the basic numbers is emotional rather than scientific. That includes all aspects of it that get talked about outside of scientific papers and direct references to those papers. It has the prophecy, rituals, sacraments, and morality of a religion.
You are fucked up beyond all belief. There is no hope for you. It's a lost cause to expect you to recognize the difference between a scientific endeavour and the human debate that follows it. Science is not not not a religion. The application of reason on what one observes is not not not a religion. The deduction of generalized explanations of observations of nature is not not not a religion, On the other hand, the acceptance of received wisdom without question from ancient sources is is is a religion.
Uh.... what? (Score:1)
Organizations that do this research get federal funding for that research. Part of that funding goes to getting the parallel processing power they need to do their job. If they are outsourcing computing power to the general public, that would mean that they could be eligible for less funding in the future.
Honestly, the very first thing I thought of when I heard of this was that it was actually some sort of cover for a cryptomining scheme.
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Inefficient use of power (Score:2)
While donating home CPU/GPU power is nice, running this on the cloud would be much more power efficient.
Is the project there yet? (Score:1)
Folding@home Active Projects [foldingathome.org]
(Currently spending 2080 super cycles on some benchmark work it seems
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https://apps.foldingathome.org... [foldingathome.org]